As many will know, the word ‘stable’ was not often used to describe Italy’s chaotic political system. However, the emergence of what is to all intents and purposes a two party system stands to save Italy a fortune.
Since the second world war, Italy has had something like 60 governments. In simple terms, that is one government per year. Such an astonishingly turbulent situation has certainly contributed towards the economic and social downward spiral Italy is now facing. Yet Silvo Berlusconi has, and is, saving Italy money.
Phenomenal Costs of Annual Elections
The sheer cost of organising yearly national elections must have been enormous, and Italy certainly cannot boast about having any kind of reputation for efficiency, meaning that election costs in the period 1945 to 2005 will have been exaggerated.
There are hidden consequences of such levels of instability though. Aside from the expense involved in setting up national elections annually, there is the loss of productivity resulting from everyone trying to get to polling stations to vote, and that is not to mention the cost of all the extra personell who take time off from day jobs to earn a few pennies to help out with organisational aspects of elections.
Italy’s Politicians Don’t Work
Another more insidious aspect which, it could be argued, has led to many of Italy’s problems today, is the fact that Italy’s politicians, the most well paid in Europe, never really do any work. Not a surprise. These honourable persons spent a large proportion of their publicly funded time arguing, infighting, and, of course, campaigning annually.
Introducing reforms, revising legislation and generally administrating a country takes time, and problems, like trash in Naples, tend to accumulate. Italy’s politicians, when they do actually act, work inefficiently. Legislation is poorly drafted, and repeals are rare.
Extinguishing old legislation via repeals is a good way of resolving old problems, or it could be. However, in Italy new legislation is tacked onto old, and, in the Italian way, problems become exacerbated as a result of excessive complexity. It takes time to understand new legislation and to manage its effects. In Italy though, this time does not exist, or at least it did not before Silvio. Indeed, time which could have been productive was merely dedicated to bringing down governments, setting up elections and campaigning. A sorry situation, which has led to many of Italy’s problems today.
Italians Rule the Roost
Yet despite all this instability, Italy remains one of the economic powerhouses of the developed world. Why is this so? Most probably because the non-politicians, the Italians themselves, are expert at finding ways around antiquated, complex and inefficient legislation. Tax evasion is rampant here, but it has to be, without it, Italy would be in truly dire straits. Yes, Italy is run by its people, and hampered by its politicians.
Enter Berlusconi – a true Italian
Along comes the jovial tanned salesman, Silvia Berluconi, who really only entered politics to protect his own back from Italy’s odd political system. It is hard to blame him for this and was almost a necessity, in that it really was the only avenue open to him.
Despite Berlusconi’s dubious motives and curious background, the man has, and is, saving Italy boatloads of money. During the last government he captained, simply managing to hold it in place for five years led to huge savings on election costs, and probably increased the productivity of the country’s politicians who were forced to do some work for the first time in 60 odd years. Although it appears as though many have forgotten how to do what they are handsomely paid for.
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As we all know, Berlusco is back, and protecting his back, and his government appears to be stable, even if cracks are appearing as a result of Silvio disagreeing with the proposals of his political allies.
Still, you have to hand it to the man. He is saving Italy a fortune. As to where all these savings are ending up, well, that is another question which is just about impossible to answer, unless you feel like risking your life and asking awkward questions that is.
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He’s saving himself from jail..you have to remember to everyone what kind of “curious background” and what kind of “dubious motives” pulled him to politics..let’s remember he was in P2 (a masonic lodge) and he had in his mansion Mangano as horsekeeper..let’s remember that Mangano was a boss from sicilian mafia.
Now the government is stable and he’s doing everything he wants because he can control a great slice of public consensus thanks to his televisions and journals. Do you think that Naples troubles will be solved thanks to new trashburners? Do you think he has not economic interests (he’s a politician) in the big Alitalia deal? He’s got power now and he’s starting to act like a politician thanks to the Lega Nord (i’m from Sicily)..they had a lot of votes because they where the only who spoke to the people in material terms.
On the other side, Veltroni and his crew are a bunch of old style idiot politicians that can’t really think about country wellness, but at least they’re not linked with mafia and don’t have Berlusconi’s kind of economical influence, that a politician can’t never have.
Hi Marco,
Welcome to Blog from Italy.
As I mentioned, Berlusco is covering his back, and I’ve heard about the mafia connections too, but then, this is Italy. Italy is all about connections, as you know, I imagine.
I dare say that if you dig deep enough, you will find that quite a few of Veltroni’s chaps have some interesting connections too. The mani pulite times revealed this rather clearly – Giuliano Amato, for example, attempted to help out his allies. I wonder why.
Berlusco is the archetypal Italian – he understands and knows how to work the system. His reward, rightly or wrongly is a fat bank account – but then most of Italy’s politicians have good sized bank accounts – remember good socialist Craxi, who got on well with Berlusco.
Yet, of all the above, only Berlusco has and is saving Italy money – like it or not.
I take it you have read the final paragraph?
All the best,
Alex
Berlusconi Saves Italy a Fortune … i don’t feel so lucky, why?
Marco is right,
i don’t know if Berlusconi want to save the Italy, and i don’t know what Berlusconi will do tomorrow;
but i know what he have done.
i can remeber that the first act of the new government was keep out the prime minister from law trouble (he said that this was done because the “italy need a stable government”; berlusconi was accused of corruption).
I can remember what Berlusconi did with Alitalia (the last decision made, early days of september); Alitalia was close to be sold to AirFrance (with the Alitalia’s debts included), but Berlusconi hasn’t allow to sell.
After the election Berlusconi had looked around for someone who would to buy the airline company, but no one would buy a company out of business.
So, Berlusconi split Alitalia in two companies. The first is made at the order to collect all the debts of old Alitalia, it’s called “bad company” the Italy is the owner of that “bad company” and the italians will pay the debts of the our airline company (that i never used … but this’s not the point), the “good company” is sold to “Italiana” a new airline company founded by some friends of Berlusconi (anyone of these person have experience of airlines company). AirFrance have offered 2600M€ for the “good” and the “bad” company; “Italiana”, for only the “good”, have offered 600M€ … Berlusconi have sold only “good Alitalia” to “Italiana”; good deal Berlusca!
Let’s try to remember which was the electoral promises of Berlusconi about Alitalia:
-Keep in Italy … done
-less laid off … no: 2000-4000 are the laid off planned by AirFrance, 5000 or more for “Italiana”
-save malpensa (the Milan airport) … no: “Italian” will don’t use malpensa; the international traffic will arrive on Milano by Paris, London or somewhere else.
Berlusconi is the typical italian? That’s the most awful thing I’ve ever heard. As an italian, I feel extremely ashamed that a man like that is leading my country, the country I love, made by honest people who work hard, not only by mafia connected awful men without any care for anybody but themselves. Please reconsider your views, most intelligent italians absolutly hate Berlusconi, his politics and his horrible views.
And please not that he didn’t save us ANYTHING, we’re living ine of the deepest monetary crisis in our recent history.
Not to forget, that political parties are paid (“refunded”), for 5 years, even though the legislature ends prematurely. And that the election day is actually made of 2 days. It seems in fact that italians are not able to vote in one day: strange people.
And then, there are local elections, european elections, and referendums (lol), and if they happen to be around the same period, our men in command decide whether to vote for them on the same day or on different days, depending on the expected result.
Next referendum (June 2009) is already becoming a farce. An Italian minister, Maroni, is opposing merging the referendum day with the european elections, because the savings for the italians will be “only” 172 millions euros, but the benefits for his party will be much more.
Hi Luca,
I did not know about Italian parties being ‘paid’ even if they do not make the five year term. This explains a lot about Italian government – zero incentive to make any real attempt to govern properly. Very interesting. This also means that Berlusconi governments are technically much better value than previous governments!
And I really do not understand why Italians need 2 days to vote! Only one day is necessary in the UK and the USA.
As for Maroni stating that 172 millions euros is a saving not worth having – well, that shows just how much Italian politicians care about Italy.
Thanks for the comment.
Best,
Alex
Hi Slade,
Thanks for disagreeing! But I’m afraid that in the eyes of the world, Berlusconi is a typical Italian, even if we both know that by no means all Italians are like him. Still, he does know how to ‘work’ the Italian system better than most. But, another but, if Berlusconi is as unpopular as you are saying, then why are there no realistic alternatives?? Maybe one has to reach the conclusion that there are not too many intelligent Italians… Although I don’t think this is the case, not from my own experience, anyway.
Sorry, but I have to disagree with you on the savings which Berlusco has achieved – with regard to the cost of elections, he has saved Italy a fair bit. With regard to other aspects, he probably has not saved Italy much, if anything. And then there is the nuclear thing – this madness is going to cost Italy a fortune, and not only in monetary terms!
Italy needs sensible politicians – at the moment though, it has very few.
Best regards,
Alex
Well, Alex, of course this would be a very very long argument to debate on, but an honest and coherent politician (and man) would have left at his first scandal. Berlusconi doesn’t, and that’s why he’s still our Prime Mininster. In all other civil countries if a politician is impeached with legal matters he just leaves his seat, to let justice do its course: Berlusconi doesn’t, he prefers to create new laws to save his rich ass, taking off funds to schools, work and public services: not the best deal ever.
Unfortunately for us you’re absolutely right: there’s no good politician in Italy, nowadays (Antonio Di Pietro is actually the only honest one around, but in my humble opinion he’s far from being a great politician, while he was a fantastic judge), but Berlusconi is the biggest evil. It’s easy to be voted when most of TVs and press are yours, don’t you think?
About him being the typical italian, let me give you an example.
America voted Bush, and everybody saw ALL the americans as bad people. Now they voted Obama, and everybody sees them ALL as democratic great and cool guys. In these terms I can see how people can see us italians as poor Berlusconi fellows, but at a close look you can see that there are a lot who are completely different, as in the US there are bad and good persons as well.
By the way, thanks for your kind answer, congratulations for the nice blog and thanks for the love you show for our country! And please excuse me if I’m too passionate, but I really don’t want people abroad to consider italian people as Berlusconi voters. That’s horrible, to me!
Hi again Slade,
“In all other civil countries if a politician is impeached with legal matters he just leaves his seat, to let justice do its course: Berlusconi doesn’t” – yes, this, generally, is true;-)
Antonio Di Pietro is one of the few honest Italian politicians to which I was alluding. And I’ll be writing about another potentially good Italian politician shortly.
The Bush example is valid. A valid example of democracy not working when the choices presented during an election are horrendous. As I’ve mentioned before, in today’s world, and not just in Italy, the candidates presented have been worrying. Voting as been akin to selecting which plate of vomit to eat. Whichever way you voted, you got to eat vomit. Obama is the kind of new face which democracy needed. In the recent elections in the States, for the first time in a long time, the voters were presented with vomit and candy – they voted for candy. Not a surprise.
Italians would vote for candy if there was any. For the moment though, the choice in Italy leans towards vomit, aside from Di Pietro – who does not have the media might of Berlusconi, alas, nor did Soru, of whom I’ve written recently.
Glad you like the blog, and I do love Italy too. It’s a good place which, with a little work, could be one of the greatest places in the world. And I do not think that everyone abroad thinks that all Italians wanted Berlusco, even if many may be a little disconcerted that he got into power.
There are lots of good people in Italy, and they will make the right choice when it presents itself.
Best regards,
Alex